


Go By

by pocketmouse



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking care of Mal is not unlike herding sheep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go By

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Griddlebone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griddlebone/gifts).



While bonding over torture and jobs gone sideways helps settle things between him and Mal, it’s not so much that as what Zoë says later that strikes a chord. “Captain ain’t so good at takin’ care of himself as he is those he considers his.” And it gets Wash to watching, and thinking. Mal doesn’t take risks if he don’t have to, but if he does he just shoulders them and moves forward, getting a little more stooped along the way. Kaylee’s too starry-eyed and Jayne probably just don’t care, but now that he looks he can see it. What Zoë’s been seeing all along. Mal’s gonna run himself right into the ground one day.

He looks across the infirmary to his wife. She’s a sharp cookie, she knows he’s caught on. She waits for Simon to disconnect him from Jayne — having a universal donor for a crewman is great, so long as they don’t need to be doing their job while someone’s in need of a refill — and walks him up to the bridge, hand in his back pocket. 

“I’d ask why you don’t stop him, but I’m not that stupid.” Besides, he’s beginning to see how she works him from a distance, herding him like a _mùyáng quǎn_. “Captain thinks someone’s riding him, he gets stubborn,” she agrees. Still, must be something could be done.

 

‘Something’ comes a mite sooner than he was expecting — the abrupt arrival and departure of Tracey shakes both Zoë and Mal, and he finds himself doing a little bit of herding himself. Subtlety isn’t exactly his strong suit, though, and after the third pass of clanging boots in the corridor, his wife stiff as a board in the bed next to him, he snaps, and slides open the door to the hallway. “ _Wèile shén de ài_ , Mal, would you get in here before you wake up any crew members that are actually sleeping?” Mal stares at him like he’s lost his mind, but doesn’t put up that much of a protest when Wash pulls him into the room by a suspender.

He starts protesting a hell of a lot, though, when Wash shoves him onto the bed. “Whoa! What the _dìyù_ is this?” Mal catches himself on the edge of the bunk. Zoë’s raised herself to her elbows, but her face gives nothing away. “Wash, I thought we were over this —“

“You’re both walking around like _yáoyǐ gōngchǎng de māo_ unless one of you has eyes on the other, and I’m not interested in seeing how long we can play emotional repression roulette. Get in the gorram bed, Mal.”

Malcolm looks like he’s going to argue, when Zoë cuts in. “To sleep, captain.” She moves over a little, opening up as much room as could reasonably be had in the small quarters.

Mal’s busy looking poleaxed, so Wash shoves him in and follows after. “Shoes off.” Mal follows the order either on instinct or just in self-preservation as Zoë is already tossing the blanket back over them. Her preferred position to sleep is either big spoon or flat on her back, and with Mal in the middle, it looks like she has no intention of playing spoons tonight. Wash is an equal-opportunity sleeper, though, and with Mal still acting like he’s expecting a Reaver to jump out from behind a corner and yell ‘boo,’ he expects it’s his turn to play big spoon. 

“Well, while this is very cozy and all, I think I —“ Mal starts.

Wash slings an arm around Mal’s chest, hand over his heart, and kicks their ankles together. “Shut up, Captain.”

“Now don’t you think that’s a poor way to address your captain?”

“Shut up Captain, _sir_.”

 

The next night, Mal knocks on their door his own self.

 

It’s not a regular thing, but it becomes maybe a step shy of common. If Mal’s in a mood when they’re in flight, he’s more like to slouch onto the bridge and throw himself into an empty seat than stomp around looking for a fight. Wash finds he’s beginning to figure out what the various shades of tension across his shoulders mean, when to worry based on how Mal’s lookin’ at the cargo bay. Still, for all that, he’s thrown when he finally figures out Mal’s got a bit of a sly side to him.

“It ain’t exactly something he’s proud of,” Zoë explains when he asks for confirmation. “Wasn’t looked too kindly at on Shadow, from what I heard.” Wash grunts. Man with his past, Mal was more like to cling to the bad than the good. “Don’t think he’s ever done more than lookin’. Just as like to chase ‘em off with his ‘mean old man’ act, let ‘em find someone else he thinks might fit ‘em better.”

Which is when he begins to think that maybe Zoë missed something too. Something in the way Mal had seemed to take it as a personal affront when Wash had started pursuing Zoë with some seriousness. She’d brushed it off right up ’til the proposal, and then things between her and Mal had been downright icy — with some shouting patches — until after the wedding was done, and even then she was still sore that he wouldn’t even go and be a witness. But eventually the ice between them had softened. Mal and Wash, though — they were still civil, even friendly, but something had definitely changed. 

Suddenly he wonders if forcing Mal to accept some comfort is really going to work out the way he thought it would.

Zoë gives his worries some thought. “So long as we’re both giving the comfort, I don’t see how I’d mind. It’s a thing we’d share, and while I can’t say I’ve got the slightest leaning towards liking Mal in that way, I am mighty vested in his being as whole a person as he’s able.”

The answer settles Wash some, and he leans back into her embrace. “I have the most amazing wife in the ‘verse.”

Zoë laughs. “That you do, honey. That you do.”

Tomorrow Mal’s in for a surprise. Tonight, Wash and Zoë have a job to plan.


End file.
